Witch Shipping Anthology
by Masked Doll Victoria
Summary: A series of short stories pairing the witches of Madoka Magica with one another. Chapter 1: Salvation, Gretchen x Homulilly Chapter 2: Dead End
1. Salvation

She had failed again. No matter how many times Homura Akemi reset the time line, no matter how different each successive set of circumstances was, the result was always the same, her best friend and fellow magical girl, Madoka Kaname, would soon meet a grisly end, dead or worse – her fate was a reality that could not be changed by mortal hands.

Homura sighed. There wasn't much else she could do as she and Madoka lay battered and bruised in the ruins of of what had once been a bustling district of _Mitakihara City. Everyone else would see the incident as a horrible act of nature or god, a powerful storm that disrupted their lives for a single night. As far as the black-haired magical girl knew, no civilians had died in the battle against the chimeric witch known only by the title of Walpurgisnacht. The only victims in this were those who had been silently fighting all alone, young girls who had thrown away their youth and very souls to protect that which was dearest to them. _

_Homura scoffed at she gazed harshly at the overcast skies above; every thing she had done was for Madoka. The fact that she had saved a few thousand people was inconsequential when the whole reason she had reset the timeline so many times and sacrificed so much now lay dying next to her. Not a death of the body, but rather one of the soul. Madoka had pushed her powers to the limit to defeat the Stage Setting Witch and paid the ultimate price for it. Her soul gem, the ugly jeweled egg that Kyubey had so stoically pulled from her upon making a contract, was no longer as pure as its owner's heart, but rather swirled with a smoky haze, like a thunder cloud that had been bottled to be sold as a cheap souvenir._

_"__What's going to happen to us, Homura-chan?" Madoka craned her head to one side to gaze upon Homura's limp form. Despite all the pain in her heart and the creep darkness welling within her soul, she still smiled at her fallen friend. _

_Homura's heart filled with grief, they both very well knew what was going to happen to them. The corruption within their soul would finally break free and overtake their minds, transforming them into monsters just as destructive as the creature they had just sent to an early grave. It wouldn't be painful, in fact they would feel anything at all. To become a witch meant giving over your humanity to darkness and becoming a demonic reflection of the dark emotions that dwell deep within every human being's soul, normally sealed away and harmless to others. When such feelings are given physical shape, they become a weapon of suffering and fear meant to drive human beings to the deepest pits of despair._

_"__We'll be fine, Madoka. Whatever happens, we'll always be together." Homura tried to smile, to match the expression of the girl she cared for more then anyone else. Even with all the strength she could muster, she couldn't; there was nothing to smile about. They were both going to die or become horrible monsters. It would soon be time to reset the timeline once more and try things over again from the beginning, though each reset had hardened her heart and further alienated her from the word at large, but none of that mattered; to see Modoka alive and smiling again was all she desired. Even if it took a million resets and even if she lost her own life in the process, it would all be worth it as long as Madoka was happy._

_"__Even if we both turn into witches, you'll still stay with me?" Madoka asked as her breathing became labored and painful. The transformation had already begun, soon her body would begin to warp and change, quickly reforming what had once been human into a living nightmare. _

_"__I'd be a bad friend if I didn't." Homura labored with all her might, finally achieving a awkward half-smile meant to calm Madoka as the end finally came for them._

_"__Then it won't be so sad, we'll be monsters together. I think that's what Sayaka-chan missed – in the end she thought that no one loved her. It made her bitter and angry even when she became a witch, but we won't end up like that, I just know it!."_

_Optimistic to the end, this was the girl whom Homura had failed so badly. There was no more she could do here; the Madoka in this time line was doomed, just like the dozen of others the had encountered in the endless loop that had become her life. With another sigh, Homura took hold of the shield strapped to her left arm and began preparations to travel to the beginning of all of this and try once more to rescue her best friend from her awful fate. Locking the shield, she turned it round as if she was winding a old clock. As she did, tears streamed down her face. Though she had seen Madoka die a dozen times over, she would never truly get used to it. _

_"__Homura-chan..." Madoka cried weakly. "You said you wouldn't go..."_

_"__I have to, you're going to die otherwise." Homura spoke as she attempted to stand._

_"__I'm not going to die...Please, stay."_

_Madoka grasped for her friend, an smile ill-suited for the situation at hand ever plastered across her anguished face_

_"__Madoka." As Homura's voice trailed off into the rain soaked skies above, she reached for Madoka's hand and towards the unknown future that would inevitability come along with it._

_To become a witch was to lose one's humanity and become another being entirely. Whereas evolution had shaped the human body into a workable, if flawed, form, the corruption of the soul turns them into monsters never meant to exist in reality. It was not a painful transformation, at least not physically, but rather one that scarred the soul and mind, warping them into alien shapes that defy all logic and laws of nature._

_Darkness welled from within Homura's cracked soul gem, engulfing its owner in a sea of darkness. From within the lightless void of her own soul, a sort of rebirth began. Her mind went first, sinking into the sea of shadows like a ship that had sprung a leak. Where thoughts of Madoka had once trodden for long and tear-filled days, now nothing but a cold and empty void remained. _

_Her body came next, like a master craftsmen constructing a doll from porcelain. The darkness that had been birthed from the seat of her soul pulled and prodded at Homura's body, twisting it into a shape unrecognizable as the girl she had once been. When the reconstruction ceased, what remained could no longer be called Homura Akemi. Clad in the vestments of a stereotypical witch of old, and her head ringed by a record and the symbol of eternity, Homura's new shape resembled a mockery of the human form crafted by a sly and sarcastic hand. _

_Homura thought, but only garbled noise came to mind. She attempted to move, but only the cowl of her monstrous form fluttered. Terror gripped what remained of her mind. It had hurt to learn that magical girls had their souls ripped out, making them little more then puppets meant to fight witches. But to actually become a witch was a event of absolute terror that no experience known to humankind could ever hope to match. _

_Homura screamed, but only awful, cacophonous noise issued forth from her dark maw. She attempted to remember why that had happened, but nothing came to mind. She tried again, to remember something, anything! Once more nothing came to mind, not even her own name. _

_"__Who was she?" the witch wondered. A name lay on the tip of her tongue, a name her lips refused to speak. Hom...Homulilly, the name was one she had never heard before, but it sounded right. It was her name, the name of the "Witch of the Mortal World" who desired... to be with a certain someone. Over and over she had told herself that everything was for that someone, that she would live her life for that person, sacrificing her own happiness in the process. But that was only half the truth, to save that someone meant an end to her self-imposed quest and to the isolation naturally lay at its side, to save that someone was to save herself. _

_It was selfish, but none of that mattered now. A witch was a witch, regardless of her intentions. There was no H*****, the name of a human girl she could no longer only recount, anymore, only Homulilly. Soon she would build a barrier and seduce humans with her sweet kiss before dragging to the depths of deepest sorrow and feasting upon their despair. For a moment she wondered what human emotions tasted like, if their was a difference between in taste between suffering caused by emotional and physical pain. It was a thought that amused Homulilly but would have made her old self cringe. _

_Even if her twisted mind had convinced herself that being a witch wouldn't be so bad, it would still be a lonely existence. Even as a witch she still desired the companionship of that Girl, the one who she sacrificed everything for. _

_"__******!" The witch called in a garbled and haunting tongue from admits the ruins of a battle that no seemed like nothing but a distant, half-remembered, memory. _

_"__What is it?" A voice called from on high. It was a massive and booming sound, that rattled in Homulilly's psyche like frenzied music._

_"__******!" She cried again._

_"__Is that you...?" _

_"__Yes!" _

_"__Oh, you did keep your promise..." Within Homulilly's mind, the voice resonated of purity and love. "Please, come to me."_

_As the witch once known as Homura trudged across the waters of her former home, it didn't take long for the the two witches to finally meet. Gazing up as she did, Homulilly beheld an enormous black pillar that stretched to the heavens as if yearning for salvation that lay just beyond the skies. _

_"__******" Lilly mumbled, as she gazed upon what had become of her best friend._

_"__It's good to see you again, Hom...no, that's not right. I wonder, what is your name now?" The booming voice lovingly questioned._

_"__Homulilly." The hatted witch answered happily. _

_"__It's a very pretty name, I think it suits you" _

_The enormous pillar began to shrink, descending from the sky like the divine being it's booming voice suggested. And as it did, the human form that capped the massive structure soon came into view. A black blob of a girl with empty eyes like pure white marbles and two ichor-stained ribbons jutting from the sides of her head, the strange witch resembled a strange shadow of the girl it had once been, the vaguely human thing beamed an eerie smile to the Witch of the Mortal World. _

_"__******..." _

_"__Yes, it's me. My name is Kriemhild Gretchen, it is good to meet you again, Lilly-chan." Moving one humanish limb from her side, Gretchen gently stroked Homulilly's cheek._

_As her partner's alien limb stroked her pitch-black face, Lilly would have blushed if she could._

_"__I told you everything would be all right, and you believed in me." Gretchen wrapped her arm around the smaller witch's waist, drawing her into an intimate embrace._

_"__Gretchen..." Lilly said followed by a contended sigh._

_"__From now on we'll be together forever; we've found our salvation, now it's only a matter of helping everyone else find theirs as well."_

_Everything Gretchen said was like a soothing balm to the Witch of the Mortal World's senses, from now on she would trust in the Witch of Salvation and follow her every word as law. For too long she had toiled in the shadows while expecting nothing in return, now was a time to rest and claim her reward for all she had done. To finally be with here with Gretchen, no matter how twisted it maybe, was enough._

_"__You're quiet, Lilly-chan. Is something on your mind?" _

_"__It's so amazing to be here with you like this. I've never been so happy.." _

_A long time ago, the girl who Lilly had once been had learned to bottle up all her feelings to shove them aside for the sake of her beloved. Even as a witch, a being of pure emotion, she had trouble expressing herself._

_"__I'm so glad you're happy, Lilly-chan... I think we should do something special to celebrate."_

_"__I'm hungry..." _

_"__That can wait," Gretchen spoke as she ran her inky fingers through her partner's hair. "What is it you want more then anything else in this world?" _

_"__You." Lilly didn't have to think, Gretchen, or at least the girl she had once been, was all she had ever wanted. Ever since that day she had first seen her die._

_"__All right." The Witch of Salvation smirked. "Tonight, we'll do something special, just the two of us."_


	2. Dead End

"She will turn all of fate's misfortune to nothing.

She will flood the earth with magic,

and take all of humankind into her play.

A moving stage construction."

Turning her back on the world that she had failed, Homura Akemi placed one hand on the buckler suspended from her left arm and prepared the magic that would send her back to a time when things were simple and the burden of being a magical girl had yet to leave her jaded and cold. Despite her best efforts, many had died and the girl who had become her her entire world now stood in the city's bay, stripped of her humanity and cloaked in eldritch darkness.

But as Homura slipped into the time stream in a haze of temporal magic, time in the world she had left behind marched forward, unburdened by her absence. In the skies above hovered the massive nameless witch inscribed by mortal tongues with the title of Walpurgisnacht. A creature formed of the accursed souls of a thousand dead witches, she was an existence who embodied the very concept of destruction. Under her care, the destructive impulse of the dead would soon be turned against those who had wronged them, reducing the city below to nothing more then a sea of dilapidated concrete and steel.

Below the Stagecraft Witch lay a black pillar of pure malice. Once human, the entity known as Kriemhild Gretchen grasped for the sky above as if reaching for something that lay just out reach. Bearing the title of Witch of Salvation, her alien mind desired to bring to others that which had been denied to her by a girl whom she had once called her best friend. The only true happiness, the witch reasoned, lay in death. Living was painful and fraught with uncertainty, death was eternal and unchanging. Salvation, she thought, lay in the grave's cold embrace. To this end she would destroy everything and bring eternal peace to humanity once and for all.

Even though humanity's lay just within reach, a hole still dwelt within the witch's distorted heart. Before her humanity had melted away, leaving only the darkness of her soul in its place, her heart had been filled with the joy of being with her beloved best friend. Those times would never come again, however, as she had been abandoned and left to rot in darkness while her duplicate in another time line was given the chance at a real and lasting happiness. Nothing could ever filled the void that Homura Akemi had left in her heart, but that would not stop her her from trying.

Reaching ever higher into the deep blue sky above, Gretchen's hands seemed poised to grasp onto anything that may happen by. Anything to fill the void at the core of her pitch black soul. Unseen by the eyes of mortals, there was only one in all the world that could answer the Witch of Salvation's desperate call.

"If everything is a play, no unhappy things will exist.

It may be a tragedy, but it'll all be part of the script."

The Stagecraft Witch cocked her head to the side as she gazed at Gretchen from above. Confused by her actions, Walpurgisnacht hovered effortlessly over the black pillar of a witch and extended the sleeve of her dress to the witch waiting below for an answer from the heavens above. Her mind a gestalt of the angry thoughts of many a fallen witch, she had no really thoughts of her own, being at most nothing more then a vessel for destructive impulses. But something about Gretchen, as she flailed at the sky like a small child reaching for her mother, intrigued the witch enough to halt her advance, even if just for a moment.

Walpurgisnacht's massive sleeve wafted in the wind just above Gretchen's head. Blocking out the sun for a moment, the Witch of Salvation's eyes lay transfixed upon the elegant garment. Her mind filled with wonder, Gretchen grasped at the sleeve and pulled herself to the Stagecraft Witch's level. Coming face-to-face with her fellow witch, a great warmth raced through her hand and then throughout the rest of her immense body. Like the inner fire of innumerable suffering souls, it was enough to still even Gretchen's dark heart.

Coming face-to-face with Walpurgisnacht's ever-smiling and eyeless face, Gretchen gazed at her counter part, drinking in the malice, rage, hatred that lay seething under the surface of her regally attired form. Within the turning gears and lace of Walpurgisnacht's chimeric form she had found a kindred soul, one whose existence was just as attuned to the extinction of the human race as was her own.

Moving her other hand to grasp for the witch's other sleeve, the pair resembled an hourglass as their immense forms became entwined, a timepiece that counted not hours or minutes but rather the meager time left between the current moment and the day in the near future when the Earth would be purified within the cleansing darkness of a witch's barrier.

As gears turned overhead, grinding in a symphony of cacophonous noise that could have driven mortals mad, Gretchen closed the distance between herself and the Stagecraft Witch until mere inches stood between their inhuman forms. Planting what would pass as a kiss among humans upon Walpurgisnacht's eternally smiling face, the two formed a twisted mockery of human affection for all of the Stagecraft Witch's familiars to see. While Gretchen placed all of the passion she had once reserved for her fellow magical girl into the embrace, her partner hovered silentlty, seemingly unmoved by the experience. No matter how much raw emotion the Witch of Salvation offered, Walpurgisnacht would never answer. Her love was wasted on the chimeric witch, but Gretchen didn't care. This was all she had, she thought as she kissed her unmoving partner once more.

"The play stops on Walpurgisnacht,

and the earth does not turn even once more.

The story will not change.

Tomorrow, and the day after, is the night of Walpurgis."

For ten days the pair sat in emotionless congress as the world around them collapsed under the weight the ever expanding field of their combined barrier. For ten days Gretchen had attempted to to elicit some response from her beloved partner, but such action never came. For ten days she silently wept, wishing for nothing more then for the Stagecraft Witch to wipe the mocking smile from her creepy face. For ten days she wished for the end, for her own salvation and an end to the one-sided love she had thought could take the place of the girl she loved most. On the tenth day her wish was answered, the whole of human history had come to an end, there was no more suffering in the world, no more hatred, and no more sorrow... save for her own.


End file.
